Macomb Township to lose grant money

Macomb Township will forfeit $162,000 in federal grant funds because officials couldn’t agree how to spend the money.

As a result, Mark Rozny, community development manager for Macomb County, said the county will “recapture” the funds and spend them elsewhere.

“The funds have been allocated to other purposes,” Rozny said.

Community Development Block Grant, or CDBG funds, are federal tax dollars that are returned to local governments to fund specific projects. The money comes with significant strings attached. Submitted projects must meet strict criteria to qualify – typically they must benefit low-income residents or seniors -- and the money must be spent in a timely manner.

In some instances, CDBG funds can be carried over from year to year, but only to a point. The money cannot be stockpiled indefinitely.

Last March, Macomb Township submitted a proposal to use CDBG funds to help pay for a garage to house three SMART vans the township uses for its Dial-A-Ride program. Township Supervisor Mark Grabow pushed for the garage, but the plan was contentious because of its price tag: an estimated $750,000. The Board of Trustees never approved construction.

That meant the CDBG funds became unallocated. The county set a deadline of Sept. 1 for township officials to come up with an alternate proposal, but none was forthcoming.

“We’ve got move it to where it can be used,” Rozny said.

Grabow called the development “disheartening.”

“These were primarily funds that were designed for the senior building,” Grabow said. “We did not work cohesively to make this happen, so the township has lost those funds.”

Trustee Roger Krzeminski said township officials surrendered CDBG funds in previous years when they couldn’t find worthwhile projects. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, he said.

“We used to … give it back to the county and tell them, ‘Give it to somebody who really needs it,’” Krzeminski said. “… Just because this $750,000 barn didn’t get built, it’s OK because (the money) went back and maybe there’s another community that really needs it.”

Macomb Township is not alone. Rozny said between $1.6 and million and $1.9 million in CDBG funds remain unspent as of April of 2011. That was enough for Macomb County officials to hear from the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the source of CDGB funds.

“We were put on warning by HUD,” he said.

Rozny said the county has never returned any CDBG funds to the federal government and is unlikely to at this point. But communities that don’t spend the money timely on qualified projects do stand to lose their allocation. Rozny said he expects at least a few more communities will be in that situation come January.